


Grumpelstiltskin

by sburbanite



Series: Fairytale Bromance [2]
Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Can Town, Fluff, M/M, Meteorstuck, POV Karkat Vantas, References to boners but no actual boners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5180972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sburbanite/pseuds/sburbanite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can’t figure out what the fuck is wrong with Dave. For as long as you’ve known the insufferable ass, he’s been a cagy little shit about his private life.  You finally managed to wedge a claw into a crack in his coolkid façade when you grubbed your way into his sleeping area, an act of desperation to finally wring a shred of genuine social interaction out of him, but now the stupid nookwhiff has clammed up tighter than the mother grub’s puckered sphincter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grumpelstiltskin

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Grumpylocks and the three Douchebags*](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5132144) by [sburbanite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sburbanite/pseuds/sburbanite). 



You can’t figure out what the fuck is wrong with Dave. For as long as you’ve known the insufferable ass, he’s been a cagy little shit about his private life. You finally managed to wedge a claw into a crack in his coolkid façade when you grubbed your way into his sleeping area, an act of desperation to finally wring a shred of genuine social interaction out of him, but now the stupid nookwhiff has clammed up tighter than the mother grub’s puckered sphincter. 

Trudging along the hallways of the meteor, listening to the echoes of your sneakers dragging, you keep an ear out for your long-lost moirail. Sometimes you catch a distant honk, most times you don’t. Dave has let you sleep in his bed more than a few times, and each time you’d felt satisfied as the tension bled out of him. Each time it had taken less time to get him to act like a normal fucking person. As normal as an alien can be, you guess. The last time had been a bit odd, though. You’d woken up with his weird alien bulge pressed into your back, firm and solid and warm. 

The freakout had been very restrained, all things considered. You’d called him a disgusting piece of perverted filth, a deviant mammal with an alien fetish, weak grubsauce for your superior linguistic abilities. Dave had turned a shade of red that had made you feel sick, mirroring your repulsive mutant blood back at you and tripping your shame-rage into overdrive. You might have stormed out. You might have avoided him for a few days. But so what? Now you want to find the smug bastard and it definitely isn’t because you feel bad about what you said and it’s eating you away inside. 

Can-town is the place to start; Dave is usually down here hanging out with the Mayor when he isn’t in all of the other places you’ve surreptitiously checked already. Snacks rustling under one arm and sneakers scuffing the floor, you make sure you don’t creep up on him again. Last time you did, hoping to hear him squeak embarrassingly, he nearly took your head off with half a sword. 

Sure enough, Strider is crouched over one of the chalk avenues, adding incredibly shitty trees to one of the parks. His drawing isn’t as bad as yours, even you admit to being the worst artist in paradox space, but everyone fucking knows you can’t just do a scribble in green chalk and call it a tree. Sometimes you think he does it on purpose to piss you off. 

Gingerly, you sit down next to him, noting how his shoulders curl inward a little. Now you know you’ve fucked things up. Good job, Vantas. You just couldn’t keep your vile cesspit of a mouth shut. You won’t go back to the monosyllabic irony zone, you fucking won’t. 

“Strider. I brought snacks.” 

He shrugs noncommittally, but takes a pack of gummy worms to chew on. You were hoping he’d go for the caramel bar things, you alchemised them as an arboreal peace poker, so he’d better fucking appreciate it. 

“What the fuck is that supposed to be?” You point at a group of indistinct black chalk scrawls, hoping to get a rise out of him. 

“s’ a graveyard.” He mutters. Holy shit, he’s fuck deep in the mope district today. 

“Look.” Time to own up and admit you’ve been a huge bulgemuncher. “I’m sorry I fucking yelled, OK? What I know about human biology would fit on one side of an adhesive notification square, I shouldn’t have assumed that waking up to a rock-hard human bulge was something significant.” 

He snorts, returning to half-heartedly doodling loops of green with a gummy worm sticking out of his mouth. Fuck, these trees are even worse than the ones he started with. Does he have no civic pride in his pathetic excuse for a bloodpusher? You nudge a little closer, this has to stop. The Mayor deserves better than this. 

Dave flinches when you put a hand on his arm, stilling its lazy sweeps. It hurts more than it probably should. 

“Dave, I am sorry, OK? Really. I shouldn’t have treated you like that.” 

Please stop messing up Can-town, you want to add, it’s the only thing you feel like you’ve actually achieved over the last almost-sweep. But this isn’t the time; even your disobedient mouth knows that. And please, please start talking to me again. 

“It was fucking morning wood Karkat,” he sighs, “so get over yourself.” 

That’s a start, you guess. He’s insulting you again even though his heart isn’t in it. You have no fucking idea what trees have to do with anything, though. 

“What the fuck is 'morning wood,' Strider? Do humans sleep with pieces of tree down their pants or something?” 

That gets a little laugh, and you feel a pleasing warmth spreading either side of your posture pole. Wringing a genuine emotion from the human always makes you feel good. 

“Yeah, of course we do, Karkat. Dude, I’m half man, half mighty oak. Birches better look out when I’m on the prowl.” 

Ugh. Typical infuriating Strider sarcasm. For fuck’s sake, you were trying to ask a genuine question. He glances over one shoulder and almost smiles a little at your glowering expression. You know his tells by now, the tiny twitch of one pale eyebrow and the tension of suppressing movement in his cheek muscles. You’ve spent more time looking at him than you care to admit, but in your defense, what the fuck else is there to look at? Dave Strider makes a decent scientific subject for human research, that’s all. 

He takes pity on you, and you silently thank fuck that he hasn’t decided to run with this metaphor until you want to strangle him. 

“It’s what humans call, like, a stupid physiological thing. It’s like an auto-boner to make sure the equipment is still working. I can’t be expected to tame the beast, Karkat. He’s his own member.” 

OK, fine. So, human genitalia apparently have a mind of their own? That makes some sense, you guess, the humans don’t seem as smart as trolls, so maybe some of their brain is located in their crotches? A part of you wonders what tricks they can do with a semi-sentient sex organ. The rest of your think-pan tells it to shut the fuck up. That means Strider isn’t attracted to you, which is a relief. Should be a relief. Fuck that same part of you that feels a bit disappointed, that part is clearly on a crusade to make your life a living hell. You are fairly sure that the different facets of your personality take it in turns to fuck with you. 

“Fine. That’s good. I won’t say anything if it happens again.” 

Dave gives you a longer look this time, his shades hiding his expression. You hate those fucking things. You want to crush them into tiny pieces so that he can’t hide behind them. If you didn’t know it would upset him, you’d flick them off his face right now. 

“Who says you’re going anywhere near my bed again, Vantas? My honor and character have been maligned by vicious lies. I can’t put my reputation on the line for the sake of a few hugs, dude.” 

Well fuck you too, Strider. You know he’s been enjoying the physical contact, the way you wake up with gangly limbs draped over you is a dead giveaway. You might have initiated the sleep-sharing, but he’s the one who keeps making sure you end up in his room watching movies until the early hours. He’s even baited you with rom-coms a few times. 

“Sure, Dave. You don’t want any physical contact from me. That’s why you’re sulking like a wiggler down here because I cancelled sleepover time.” 

He tenses up again and fuck fuck fuck why do you keep fucking things up. It can’t make anything worse, so out of desperation, you wrap your arms around him. This is the most awkward, uncomfortable half-hug in history, and you wait for him to wrench himself away. He doesn’t. 

“Karkat, I fucking forgive you, OK? You can stop throwing yourself at me. I know I’m irresistible, but I thought you had more willpower, man.” 

Fuck you, Dave. He’s not moving, not making any attempt to get out of this. He’s enjoying it as much as you are. You’re not pale for him, you remind yourself. Pale feelings wouldn’t have you thinking about the way his bulge felt against your back. Not that you are, of course. Shut the fuck up, you traitorous excuse for a think-pan. 

Looking up at him, you realize he’s wearing that smug smirk. The one that makes you want to punch him. But his cheeks are a little pinker than usual, not the bright red of burning embarrassment, but something altogether more interesting. More attractive, maybe, if you’re allowing yourself to indulge the suspicion that you might have a tiny crush on Dave Strider. A microscopic one. A perfectly understandable fluttering of flushed feelings toward the only single person you ever spend any time with. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the way he looks at you before the two of you fall asleep, naked eyes half-hooded and utterly relaxed. 

You realize his arm has snuck around your back, resting gently across your spine. It isn’t on your shoulders, not a typical bro-hug where he can’t resist emphasising how much taller he is. His hand isn’t quite resting on the top of your ass, but it’s not a million miles away. 

“Please, Strider. You can’t expect me to sidestep every single Vantas-trap you set. I’d be fucking exhausted. It hardly counts as 'throwing myself at you' if you keep tripping me the fuck over so you can catch me.” 

The smirk widens a little at that, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t, most importantly, deny it. Fuck. This is nice and horrible all at the same time, the tension making you feel electric and fluttery and stupid and embarrassed. How do you make it stop? Do you want it to? You suddenly want very much to see his eyes; it isn’t fair that he gets to hide away when you’re out in the open with your cheeks heating up like a furnace. 

You think he might freak out when you reach for his shades, but even though his jaw clenches he doesn’t stop smiling. It is a smile now, not a smirk. When you push the glasses onto his head, you can see the smile has made it to his eyes, too. 

“Sup.” He says, like the smooth bastard he pretends to be. As if, he’s the dorkiest dork since Egbert. 

“Sup yourself, moron.” If you want me, Strider, come and fucking get me. You aren’t even going to pretend you don’t want him to kiss you right now. 

Snickering under his breath, Dave picks up his chalk and starts drawing again. Fuck you, you human dick. Two can play at the moment-ruining game and you can feel your crush evaporating. By which you mean intensifying because seriously what the fuck. 

His trees are better this time, proper shapes colored in carefully. You’d be pleased if he wasn’t doing it to fuck with you. Or not fuck with you, rather. 

You open one of the bags of snacks, and offer him some chips in the least erotically charged way you can manage. As he puts the chalk down to take one (his other arm is still draped over your back), he brings the hand up and pulls you into a kiss instead. 

He tastes of gummy worms. Your first kiss with him and he tastes like fucking candy. It’s hesitant, nervous, not what you’d expected from Dave. You guess you thought he had matching smooth moves in the romance department. You realize this is the real Dave, the one underneath the stupid coolkid act, and it melts something inside you. You kiss him back, enjoying the honesty of the moment. It’s a relief to finally admit to yourself that you’ve wanted to do this for perigrees. 

This kissing business is going surprisingly well, but your neck is starting to hurt because of the awkward angle. Damn him for having a soul completely devoid of romance. Breaking away, you push him so he’s got no choice but to lie down, and you join him on the metal floor. He snorts when he looks at your face. 

“Kitkat, you’re covered in chalk.” 

You sweep a hand through his shitty attempts at trees, and wipe it on his face. 

“So are you, fuckface.” 

He captures your hand in his, and squeezes it gently. 

“I got a confession, man. It kinda wasn’t morning wood. Sorry. It was, uh, Karkat wood.” 

You grin. You can’t really say it comes as a surprise. 

“No shit, Dave. I seem to have woken 'the beast' again.” 

He looks down at his crotch, panic on his face. There’s nothing there, obviously. You’re not so arrogant to think you can get a rise out of him with one kiss. You grin at him, you made him look. Stupid Dave. He wipes the grin off your face with another kiss, and you don’t even mind him using his chalky hand to completely cover your face with green. Green and red go well together, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't resist, they are so sweet together. Kiss, damn you. Kiss for my amusement and also because you make each other happy.


End file.
